crafty christmas 2012

Despite my lack of posts, Crafty Christmas did happen this year, it just wasn’t quite as well documented as I would’ve hoped. I did get photos of most of the finished projects, but not many (or any) of the step-by-step process, so bear with me, I’ll do my best to explain the steps without pictures.

This week is dedicated to Crafty Christmas 2012, enjoy!

My mom, sister, and sister-in-law each got homemade earrings… plus I might’ve kept a pair of each for myself.

Starting in about September I kept my eye on deals over at the | plaid barn | and ended up getting about 10 of these bronze feathers, plus a few other styles for only a few bucks. Once they arrived, I just bought some standard earring hooks at the local craft store, and put them right through the holes that were already on the feathers.

Easy breezy! Seriously, probably one of the simplest Crafty Christmas gifts I made, but they were a hit! I had enough of the feathers left over that I was able to make necklaces for everyone as well. Just bought some thin chain that was the same color as the feathers, strung it through the holes, and used a very small spacer to attach the back. They were all long enough that they didn’t actually need a clasp, just slip right over the head, which saved me a lot of trouble when it came to making them.

When it came time to package the jewelry, I cut a piece of thick stock about 2 1/2″ x 4″, rounded the 2 top corners so it’d look like a tag, punched a few holes, stuck some Washi tape on, and they were good to go!

It’s almost a little embarrassing how easy the gifts were, but hey, they were still made with love!

This gift is definitely one that I can’t take any credit for because I originally saw it over on | Lil’ Blue Boo | and pretty much copied her exactly. When I first saw it, I immediately fell in love with the idea, what kid doesn’t love to get a whole bunch of random craft supplies so they can create whatever they can imagine? It’s a gift I would’ve loved as a kid (and probably made a huge mess out of), but my 3 nephews are home-schooled, so I was hoping it would make for some good distractions on a rainy afternoon. I loved everything about the gift and was thrilled with the way it turned out. I made 1 big art box for our 3 nephews to share and because they range in age from 3-8, I made sure to throw in a variety of things. The box ended up being pretty inexpensive, too, about $40 for the whole thing, but once it was divided about 3 kids, it’s really not so bad.

The one thing I didn’t include was any form of adhesive (glue, tape) because I figured they would already have that stuff and I didn’t want to waste space in the box.

But all in all, I hope it led to hours of entertainment for my adorable nephews.

I think it’s a good sign that I’m satisfied with the gifts I made when I end up keeping one of each for myself. :)
I made one of these for my sister (and one for myself), while my mom got 2 that were similar. This pillow ended up being super easy to make for 2 different reasons:

- 1 –
I wanted to avoid putting zippers in my pillows. Zippers are a pain in the neck (in my opinion) and I’d rather do without them when I can. However, I still wanted the pillows to be washable, so I ended up using a method I’d seen on Martha Stewart referred to as an | envelope-back | It’s a pretty foolproof method that saves a lot of frustration (if you hate sewing zippers as much as I do), and the best part is the pillow slips right out when it’s time to wash the pillowcase.

- 2 –
The letters were simple because I used the exact same method as I did for my | appliqued onesies | I chose a thick font | Bebas | because it’s easily readable and the block letters were a breeze to sew around. A cursive font would make an elegant pillow, just a little more difficult to sew.

I used a natural linen for the pillow and white linen for the letters. My advice is to figure out where the center of the front of your pillow will be before you sew it all together, that way you can go back and sew around the edges of all your letters with ease.

Simple right? And it will make such a fun throw pillow on the chaise in the baby room!

I made this pillow for my sister-in-law, with of my most favorite fabrics ever using | this | method. It was easy to make, the one hiccup was tracing the letter backwards onto the wrong side of the fabric, so that when it was flipped and ironed onto the pillow, it faced the right way.

Again, I used the | Bebas | font, but you can create your own template using any font you prefer.

Welcome! Thanks for stopping by the place where I get to share my ideas. If you like what you see, please stop by often for more thoughts and inspiring projects brought to you, by me, as well as a few tutorials and freebies along the way.
xo
Lindsay